Whip the whip.

An old Labour Party web address has been given a new lease of life on a Hamilton election billboard with a direct link to the Prime Minister’s Facebook page.

Hamilton West candidate Sue Moroney became the unwitting champion for the National Party when the recycled election sign she erected last Friday was altered and tied to the PM’s personal account.

Labour used the web address www.labour08.co.nz during the 2008 election campaign and Moroney had it obscured with masking tape for the run to the September 20 general election.

A few days later, the tape was removed from the sign, the domain registered and linked to Key’s Facebook page that showed pictures of last week’s meeting with US President Barack Obama.

Moroney, as chief whip, should know a lot better. Her name is being used to authorise Parliamentary Service funded materials, and if past precedent is anything to go by, she will be one of the senior members of they party’s publications committee, whose job it is to sign off on anything the party puts out.

Now she’s gone and got the party a shoddy newspaper story because she’s been sloppy and used six year old election hoardings (that have already lost her two elections). If I were a campaigner I’d be wondering why on earth she had anything to do with a committee designed to stop crap like this happening.

Her response is also textbook Moroney:

That’s a very bad look for the Prime Minister to be connected with that sort of politicking in Hamilton.

Um. It was probably a bored activist. Hell, Tim Macindoe is so relaxed about his contest in Hamilton West that he’s gone on an overseas holiday. Talk about an over-inflated ego that thinks that John Key is somehow connected to some grand campaign to undermine Sue Moroney. The only one at fault here is her.